Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein and The Pop Art Masterpiece Market: Analysis

August 14, 2020 by Angelica Villa

Roy Lichtenstein in front of one of his paintings at an exhibition in Stedelijk Museum.

This report on the Roy Lichtenstein market using data provided by Pi-eX is available to AMMpro subscribers. (The first month of AMMpro is free and subscribers are welcome to sign up for the first month and cancel before they are billed.)

No artist is more closely associated with Pop art than Roy Lichtenstein, the painter who helped to usher in post-modernism by elevating mass-culture comic strips into high art. Despite his unquestionable historical importance and broad recognition beyond art collectors and museums, Lichtenstein’s market has somewhat lagged even as the art market exploded over the last two decades. His prolific peer Andy Warhol played a central role in the growth of Contemporary art prices that Lichtenstein had not, that is, until relatively recently. From there it has been a slow burn but still a bright one.

In 2012, the Art Institute of Chicago and Tate London collaborated on a retrospective that brought the artist new attention. In response, auction results rose. A report published by London-based Pi-eX analyzed Lichtenstein’s 2007 to 2019 sales from the evening auctions at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips. (For clarity, Pi-eX uses hammer prices, not prices with the buyer’s premium added. Consequently, all prices in this report will be based upon the hammer prices.) Pi-eX found the highest number works (between 25 and 30) traded in 2013, the year following the Lichtenstein survey. The evening sale lots generated $80 million in sales with another $60.5 million taking place throughout the year, according to public auction records.Continue Reading

Agnes Gund’s Art Coattails Fund Criminal Justice Reform

June 12, 2017 by Marion Maneker

Agnes Gund sold her Roy Lichtenstein painting sometime in the last year. Josh Baer reported the sale in January. Now Gund is going public with an off-key appeal. She is using $100m of the $165m Steven Cohen paid for Lichtenstein’s Masterpiece (above) to establish the “Art for Justice” fund to support criminal justice reform in the US.

Make no mistake, Gund’s philanthropy is profound and her willingness to use any network to attract donors is both valid and laudable. But trying to make it the particular responsibility of art collectors to support a charity requires factitious assertions like this one:Continue Reading

Cashing In On Betty Freeman

May 10, 2012 by Marion Maneker

If this Roy Lichtenstein work that sold tonight at Phillips de Pury looks familiar that’s because it was part of Betty Freeman’s extraordinary sale at Christie’s in May of 2009 where an important collection served to beat back the misery of the credit crisis and financial panic gripping the world.

This Lichtenstein made just a hair under $2m at that sale. It was flipped tonight for a number near the low estimate—$3.44m but still enough to generate a solid 50% return in three years time.